My respect for Lion grew. He was clearly aroused but he did not take advantage of me even though he was clearly stronger and capable of hurting me.
He did not even try to hide the fact that he is aroused.
By now, he just finished making some sort of bathtub inside the room using magic. He filled it with warm water and poured some of the sparkling water from one of the vials. Magical leaves and herbs were soon added and now the water has a very pleasant smell.
He told me that the water is ready for me to bathe and shyly asked for my permission to allow him to help me bathe since he has to put some tonic on the water every now and then in order to restore my energy and my health.
Why not? I thought mischievously. I'm not that young anymore to keep acting like I'm some sort of prude. I decided to trust Lion and gave him permission. His eyes begin to lightened up and I have a feeling that they would soon change of what I'm about to do.
I stood up while Lion was looking at me, making sure that I won't trip or anything, and slowly walk towards the bathtub. I kept looking at his eyes while I slowly removed the blanket covering my naked body. The blanket fell on the floor with a soft sound as I went inside the bathtub. I finally sat down while Lion just stood there, looking at me with such intensity that his eyes began to deepen in color.
The water is so soothing that I closed eyes. I began to hum some sort of tune when I feel Lion's arm hugging me from behind. I smiled and continued to hum while he nuzzled my neck.
After a while, he poured some kind of cool, sticky liquid on my hair and let it stay there for awhile. He caressed my shoulders with his fingers while he sang in a low voice.
I'm glad to have met you, I told him. I can't even imagine what would happen to me if I didn't met him.
He continued to sing while he slowly began to hold me again from behind.
I was contemplating on what to say next when he stopped singing and placed his head on my shoulder.
He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.
With a shaky voice, he asked me if I would allow him to form a bond with him. I can feel him starting to tense up.
I don't know anything about bonding except what Ghost told me, I admitted to him.
He turned his head towards me and I opened my eyes and looked at him.
I want you to be my mate in the future, he said with no hesitation in his voice.
I continued looking at him before replying.
What do I do? I asked him sincerely. I'm not sure whether my feelings for you are deep enough and it's too soon. I don't know much about you, and neither do you with me.
He smiled with amusement and touched my nose playfully.
There's no need for me doing anything. He is the one doing the chasing and performing all the necessary steps of bonding and convincing me that he's a capable mate for me, he said softly. Then he stopped and looked at me curiously. How long did I think I stayed here in this world? He questioned me.
Now that I think about it, I must have stayed here for 3 months or 6 months at most, give or take, I told him. Right?
He snorted then laughed.
I looked at him incredulously. Now what?
He continued to laugh while holding me tightly.
After some time, he finally stopped laughing but not without amusement clearly shown in his face.
It turns out that I've been staying here for more than a year, in earth years to be exact. Based on what I still remembered on science back on earth, it turns out that this world's rotation is somewhat longer than the orbit of this world around its suns. Kinda like Venus. This world orbit around both suns. No wonder that they have no concept of time. It sounded very confusing to me. Also, I'm beginning to understand why the morning and evening seems too long.
Ah. No wonder back then I felt tired all the time.
Lion asked me how it is on earth since I looked so confused when he told me that I've been staying longer than what I thought.
I told him all about the concept of time, about how we divide the morning and evening, the days, weeks, months and year.
Lion thought for a moment and admitted that he wasn't too sure but a year on this world is already several years back on earth.
I'm old.
Then I remembered that Lion is already centuries, CENTURIES older than me. Though he did told me way back that physical age, mental age and the number of years you've live are different. It's a strange concept for a human.
I closed my eyes and felt Lion kept nuzzling me, waiting for my answer.
I smiled while my eyes are still close, and told him I would accept bonding with him and would like it even more if our relationship with each other would grow stronger. I admitted to him that though I wasn't sure enough about my feelings towards him, i loved the affection he gave me.
There was silence.
Then I feel him gently washing my hair and I was starting to feel like I said something that hurt him because he didn't say anything.
My hair was dried by some sort of gentle wind breeze that Lion managed to summon.
After that I felt his fingers slowly brushing my hair aside as he kissed my neck.
He began to comb my hair using my comb that he gave me while giving me soft kisses at the back of my neck.
Then he began to sing again, this time his voice sounded more cheerful.